By Daniel Flynn
Kinshasa - Wardens in Congo's giant Virunga National Park face an unusual and deadly challenge: heavily armed militia fighters are eating their elephants.
Just as wildlife was starting to return to Virunga after a decade of war, an offensive by Democratic Republic of Congo's army to clean up militia groups has driven Mai Mai fighters deep into Africa's oldest national park, conservationists say.
Not only are the Mai Mai killing Savannah elephants for food and ivory, but the battles to dislodge rebel groups are destroying much of the habitat in a park which once boasted the highest density of large mammals in the world.
"The park has become a battlefield," said John Hart, senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told Reuters from eastern Congo. "There are a range of armed militia and renegade groups retreating or being pushed into the park."
A report in June by New York-based WCS and Congo's Nature Conservation Institute (ICCN) showed Virunga's population of elephants and other large animals N such as buffalo and Ugandan kob, a type of antelope N was recovering after a decade in which two wars swept across the park.
But just two months after the report was published, a group of 200 Mai Mai fighters set up camp in the centre of Virunga. In the last month, this one group has killed 17 elephants for food and to sell the meat and ivory, with evidence pointing to the collusion of elements in Congo's national army, Hart said.
"There are almost daily reports of elephants being killed in the past month," said Hart, estimating there could be fewer than 300 left. "Wildlife still remains in the park, but it is hanging on by a thread. It faces ever newer threats."
Militia groups were also selling buffalo and hippopotamus meat from the park, which sits on the border with Rwanda and is ranked by UNESCO as an endangered world heritage site.
Protecting Congo's animals has come at a high price for the guards, who are paid $1 per month by the government but receive some support from other organisations. Over 100 guards have been killed in the last decade, five in the last year alone.
The Mai Mai are a disparate group of militias formed during Congo's 1998-2003 war to resist incursions by Rwandan forces. After a 2003 peace deal, many of them refused to participate in a U.N.-backed disarmament process and resisted the new government.
Congo held its first free elections in over 40 years on July 30 and will stage a presidential run-off next month. Many people hope the elections can draw a line under the last war, which left four million people dead, mostly from hunger and disease.
"It is going to take military intervention to secure the park," said Hart. "Any time the militia leave the park, they leave a trail of murder and looting."
Some 15 people, including eight civilians, were killed this week in a joint operation between the Congolese army and United Nations forces to clear some Rwandan militia from the park.
While the frontiers of Virunga have not changed since its foundation in 1925, the area available to wildlife is being gradually eroded by human encroachment. Removing these populations will be very difficult, Hart said.
"I remain hopeful that enough wildlife will survive in pockets to recover the populations once the park is secured," he said. "I am not confident that will happen immediately."